The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-11-06
THE DRAMATIC CRITIC.

The New York dramatic critic is being
who must necessarily be viewed by his edi-
torial associates with awe and admiration,
not unmixed with envy. With awe because
of the lofty superiority he assumes over the
common herd; with admiration because he
seems not only to know little of everything,
as every newspaper man must, but to know it
all; with envy because the ordinary reporter
or editor never hope to combine in his
own utterances dogmatic assertion and intense
self-complacency with any such degree of
success. Editors may be wise and impressive,
but their profundity is nothing to that Of the
dramatic critic; the reporter may follow to
the best of his ability the New York fashion
of saying a very little in great deal of
space. but the dramatic critic sustains his
record as the one who can say less in column
than any other living man. He mas ways of
his own, this critic, and one of them is the
assumption that no play has ever been pro-
duced until it is presented on a New
York stage An actor may have appeared in
a given part in every theater in the
country before he reaches the metropolis,
but his previous experience is ignored when
he reaches there; the critic affects to be una
ware of and uninfuenced by the reception
accorded the play elsewhere, and considers it
in the light of an experiment and from what he
is pleased to term an entirely Independent
tand-point. If the actor is wise and polite,
ov,d 10 4ho
this independent and mighty being, all may
be well with him; but woe betide if he fail to
observe this precaution. The critic will then
fall upon him like a puppy upon rag doll
and rend him limb from limb Each New
York paper has a critic on its staff, and what
has been said applies to them collectively,
though they have their individual peculari-
ties. Often they unite their forces as in the
enough to expect to stand on her merits and
be treated with fairness. She asked no
favors, she made no attempt to placate the
awful powers, and for this offense she was
jeered, and ridiculed, and prosecuted, with
the result that she was driven from the stage,
financially ruined. An opportunity of an
other sort has been afforded the critics in the
case of Mrs. Potter. Mrs Potter has social
prestige, she has unlimited self assurance,
and she has shrewdness. She has not an
atom of dramatic talent; but for two years
she has courted the favor of the press and the
critics, and the consequence is that they treat
her as if she were in reality a queen
of the drama and her efforts entitled
to the attention and respect due Cushman
or Bernhardt. It is more difficult, however,
to praise where there is nothing to praise
than to denounce, and the attempts of the
several writers to say something that would
sound we'll and mean nothing have been
amusing. The difficulty has been overcome
in most cases by devoting half the column to
the audience, two-thirds of the rest to the
actresses clothes, and the remainder to her
acting Even then, where the fear of stultify-
ing themselves by actual praise has led to nom
committal expressions, the intellectual strain
has been distinctly visible through the
crevices. Taken altogether, there is not that
uniformity of opinion which could be desired,
and the critics, in summing up the matter,
would, if they were less serenely selfsatisfed.